GOSHEN -- Christopher Porco slid off his suit coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves and drove away alone from the Orange County Courthouse late Tuesday afternoon, a couple hours after his attorneys wrapped up their defense to allegations he'd murdered his father and attempted to kill his mother.

Both sides are scheduled to give their summations today, and the jury is expected to begin deliberations by late this afternoon. Laurie Shanks, Porco's co-counsel, will go first and be followed by Albany County Chief Assistant District Attorney Michael P. McDermott.

Over the past seven weeks, a jury of eight women and four men have heard from more than 80 witnesses, most of them testifying for prosecutors who sought to portray Porco as a deceitful and coldblooded killer. The defense countered with at times searing cross-examinations of those witnesses, and a handful of their own character witnesses, building Porco up as a thoughtful and gentle college student who they contend was railroaded by police.

"I've got fairly good feelings about the way the trial went," said Porco's attorney, Terence L. Kindlon.

The case against Porco was built largely on circumstantial evidence. But prosecutors used video surveillance films from his Rochester college, eyewitnesses and a series of records, including e-mails and forged loan applications, to cast Porco as a deeply troubled young man whose life was crumbling around him.

Initially, prosecutors hoped to use a 6-hour videotaped interrogation of Porco by Bethlehem police to dismantle his alibi that he had spent the night of the murder in his dormitory lounge halfway across the state. But Judge Jeffrey G. Berry ruled the interrogation was inadmissible because police violated Porco's rights by declining to provide him access to a family friend who was serving as his attorney that night.

Without it, the prosecution was left to try to rebuild Porco's account to police by using the testimony of witnesses, including his family members, who said he claimed to have spent that night sleeping on a couch in the lounge. Several students who were in the lounge between 10:30 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. that night said he was never there.

College surveillance cameras captured his Jeep leaving school that night around 10:30 p.m. and returning to school about 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 15, 2004, about three hours before the attack was discovered back in Bethlehem. Defense attorneys suggested in their questioning of prosecution witnesses that Porco may have left school during those times to visit nearby fast food restaurants.

As he left the courthouse Tuesday, McDermott said their strongest witness was Marshall Gokey, a former neighbor who testified that he saw Porco's yellow Jeep parked in the driveway of Peter and Joan Porco's residence at about 4 a.m. on the day of the murder. Prosecutors contend Porco was inside the home at that time, and may have already used an ax to kill his father, Peter, and gravely injure his mother, Joan, who nearly died.

Late last week, the defense pledged to counter Gokey's testimony with an analysis by a private investigator who had planned to use measurements and video footage of the neighborhood to show that Gokey would have been hard pressed to see a yellow Jeep in the darkened driveway that night. But the investigator never testified.

Still, to counter two other key prosecution points, the defense called their own expert witnesses, a geneticist and Joan Porco's neurologist.

The geneticist, a biology professor, assailed the findings of a prosecution witness who concluded there was a 99.61 percent chance that Porco's mitochondrial DNA was recovered from a Thruway toll ticket turned in at an Albany tollbooth on the night of the murder. William J. Shields characterized the DNA expert's findings as seriously flawed and overstated.

Then, Joan Porco's neurologist, Dr. Mary Dombovy, testified Monday that she doubted there was any possibility that Joan Porco, whose head was split open in the attack, could have recalled the incident or been able to indicate to police who was responsible.

McDermott said the judge will leave it up to the jury to decide whether Joan Porco's injuries would have prevented her from being able to communicate with police through nods and hand gestures that her younger son was the assailant.

Joan Porco has said she has no memory of the attack and that she believes police have wrongly accused Christopher.

The last four of 10 witnesses called by the defense testified on Tuesday.

Alexandra Hallock, a longtime friend of Joan Porco's, recounted that in August 2004 Joan Porco had told her that her telephone line had been "tampered with."

That same phone line was snipped just before 5 a.m. on the night of the murder, and defense attorneys have suggested that it may not have been the first time. Authorities contend the telephone line was damaged by a tree limb in August 2004, and that Christopher Porco cut that line on the night of the murder to make it appear there had been a break-in.

Richard Hanft, an attorney and longtime acquaintance of Peter Porco's, took the stand next and recounted how a former Family Court client involved in a heated custody dispute had threatened he and Porco's life, along with that of Porco's former boss, Judge Anthony V. Cardona, in 1989.

The jury was instructed by the judge that defense attorneys were not alleging that the man who made the threat was responsible for Porco's murder. Rather, they wanted the jury to hear the information to show that police may have ignored other leads.

The last defense witness was Elaine La Forte, a Bethlehem veterinarian who has employed Christopher Porco for about seven years. La Forte said that Christopher and his mother both live in her home, which she shares with her partner, veterinarian John Kearney.

Over prosecutors' objections, the judge allowed La Forte and several other defense witnesses to serve as character references for Porco. La Forte said he was "gentle and kind" to animals and had never shown any signs of being violent.

Brendan J. Lyons can be reached at 454-5547 or by e-mail at blyons@timesunion.com.

UPCOMING: An in depth look at the evidence the jury heard ... and did not hear. Coming Thursday.